Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Catfish Farmers Want Imports InspectedCalls on Congress to tighten regulations.Compiled by staff Published: Oct 19, 2009The Catfish Farmers of America this week launched a major advertising and public safety awareness campaign called "All Catfish Should be Treated Equally". The campaign urges the USDA to enact a congressionally approved law requiring all imported catfish to meet the same stringent health and safety standards as imported beef, poultry and pork. "We've launched this campaign because of the urgency of this health and safety issue," said Joey Lowery, president of the Catfish Farmers of America. "We need Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to enact this law now. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our families. U.S. catfish farmers fully support the toughest and widest-ranging regulations and inspections that will protect American consumers when it comes to catfish - both imported and domestic."

While the USDA currently inspects and ensures the safety of all meat and poultry products sold in the United States, it does not inspect seafood. The inspection of seafood is conducted by the Food and Drug Administration.

Last year 5.2 billion pounds of seafood were imported into the United States from foreign countries. However, the FDA inspected only two percent of all imported seafood, including catfish, according to the Government Accountability Office.

"There is absolutely no way to determine whether all these imports are safe from contamination or harmful chemicals that aren't allowed here in the U.S.," said Lowery. "We want USDA approval that every catfish product imported into America meets the same rigorous standards for quality and safety as our farm-raised catfish."

The Catfish Farmers of America started its "All Catfish Should Be Treated Equally" campaign this week because the administration has reached a critical point in the decision-making process for enacting the law.

The U.S. Congress, responding to evidence of serious problems with the quality of imported catfish, voted to move catfish inspections and regulation from the FDA to USDA as part of the 2008 Farm Bill. USDA Secretary Vilsack, who has made food safety one of his top priorities, is now considering whether to require that all imported catfish meet USDA standards, or to include only Chinese "channel" catfish which are grown from young U.S. catfish stock.

Catfish products are also imported to the United States from Vietnam and Thailand where fish from the catfish family are called "tra" or "basa." Among the two percent of seafood imports from Vietnam inspected by the FDA during a recent four-year period, nearly one in every five seafood shipments, including catfish, was contaminated with potentially deadly chemicals or drugs that are banned by the United States in farm-raised catfish, according to the FDA.

In a bipartisan appeal, Sen. Blanche L. Lincoln, D-Ark., chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, urged Vilsack to "support a broad definition of catfish that will ensure that catfish products meet the standards for safety that Americans have come to expect from the U.S. Department of Agriculture."

Open Ponds Could Be Key to Algae-Biodiesel Production1 Comment Posted by John Davis – October 20th, 2009 Rising feed prices for catfish farms and the rising Chinese market are bad news for those in the South, as more than 320,000 catfish pond acres could be up for grabs. But where one door closes, another opens, as a possible glut of open-air ponds could provide a boon for those looking to raise algae for biodiesel.

To explore the possibilities, the National Algae Association Mid-South Chapter is presenting a workshop on November 18-19, 2009 in Memphis, Tennessee at the Holiday Inn Select Hotel, downtown. This association press release says the key speakers will include Barry Cohen, Director of the National Algae Association; Terri Chiang of Biomass Partners, LLC; and Ron Putt of Auburn University:

The workshop’s focus will be highlighted by a motor coach trip to Saul Fish Farm, a leading aquaculture facility in Des Arc, Arkansas where attendees will go on a walking tour to get a first-hand glimpse of the scope and potential for algal open pond production. Rodney Saul, owner of Saul Fish Farm will describe his procedures for growing algae for aquaculture applications. While at the farm, attendees will hear from additional speakers and interact in open forums on algal growing techniques, harvesting, and extraction methods.

Deadline submission for white papers for open pond algal growth systems, technologies, and support equipment is November 1st for review by the executive committee for potential inclusion in the workshop.

“This event is very timely in light of the strong interest in alternatives to expensive, closed-loop algae production systems, says Tamra Fakhoorian, president of the NAA Mid-South Chapter. She continues, “Given the current availability of hundreds of thousands of existing pond acres in the South and new applicable technologies coming on-line, aquaculture farmers and entrepreneurs alike are taking a good look at the economic feasibility of becoming open pond algae farmers. This workshop will address the opportunities, the challenges and late-breaking solutions for open pond production.”

You can get more information on registration here. Early registration goes on through November 4th.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Posted on Sun, Oct. 18, 2009 11:08 PMIn Seafood Industry, Regulation Isn't FishyBy STEVE EVERLYThe Kansas City StarBreaking NewsSuspicious containers found in Lawrence Person of interest identified in fatal Lawrence hit-and-run Recalled baby food may be tainted with botulism Chiefs trade Tank Tyler to Carolina Billy Joel, Elton John coming to KC in December Missouri to lay off 100 state parks workers Jury convicts Raytown man in videotaped killing at south KC bar Woman charged with dropping toddler from balcony Navy recruiter sentenced to 15 years in KC sex sting Truck plunges into south KC creek DNR closes Lake of the Ozarks beach for high E. coli NBC Action Weather | A nice evening; clouds move in Tuesday Burke to enter KC mayor race No one injured after small plane lands in grass Missouri prison population at all-time high Southwest Missouri man killed in hunting accident More charges expected in 2006 group home fire that killed 11 Two-week hospital stay possible for injured KC fire captain KCK man shot to death is identified Former Kansas congressman Glickman to step down as head of MPAA Don’t lump the U.S. seafood industry in with businesses that are sick and tired of big government. This is one sector that wants more regulation, and the sooner the better.

The problem is seafood sold at less than the weight listed on the package, which an industry gathering earlier this year described as “premeditated, organized and intentional” fraud.

Industry groups want regulators to be more aggressive in helping curb the abuse, which has some seafood selling at 10 to 35 percent less than its labeled weight. Though it’s difficult to say just how widespread shortweighting is, the industry fears the losses are substantial for honest vendors and for consumers, given that nearly $23 billion in seafood was sold in the U.S. last year.

“We want to shine a light on this so we can get rid of it,” said Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute, the country’s largest seafood trade group, whose members include chain restaurants, wholesalers and fishermen.

The U.S. consumes 5 billion pounds of seafood a year, 80 percent of it imported and most of it frozen. That makes the industry and consumers particularly vulnerable because a package that says, for example, 10 pounds of shrimp is supposed to contain 10 pounds of shrimp — plus any ice. But without a careful thawing, draining and weighing, it’s nearly impossible to tell whether excess ice could be cheating the buyer.

On top of that, the Food and Drug Administration inspects only 2 percent of seafood and focuses on food safety more than possible underweighting.

There are signs the industry’s message is being heard, as the FDA says it is considering a tougher approach and recently issued a warning about ice being wrongly included in listed weights.

“We do take economic fraud seriously,” said Stephanie Kwisnek, a FDA spokeswoman.

State regulators also are looking at the issue, though only a few states routinely check the weight of seafood, in part because it takes special equipment and can be expensive.

Neither Kansas nor Missouri currently performs the tests, but Ron Hayes, Missouri’s division director for weights and measures, said the seafood issue was only recently brought to his agency’s attention.

“Very likely we’ll be doing some testing,” he said.

The nature of the seafood business has long made it vulnerable to some forms of deception, such as substituting a cheaper species of fish for one that can snare a higher price, or making up names that suggest a better — and more expensive — product. Earlier this year, for instance, federal regulators said that calling Vietnamese catfish “white roughy” was misleading.

As for shortweighting, it’s difficult to say how common the problem is because of the lack of comprehensive data, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent report.

But the Better Seafood Board, another industry group seeking to stamp out the fraud, says the practice has become so brazen that one Chinese supplier offered wholesalers three different prices for channel catfish. The more deceptive the weight of a package, the cheaper the price was for a “pound” of fish.

Similar solicitations are appearing in California, which has inspected seafood for decades, said Kurt Floren, who is in charge of weights and measures for Los Angeles County. He said that he first saw evidence of shortweighting more than a decade ago and that awareness of the problem is increasing.Some Kansas City area wholesalers said they also knew that shortweighted product was available from some suppliers, but they refused to buy it.

Wisconsin is another state that checks for underweighted seafood, and regulators there say they have found “quite a bit of it,” with packages of frozen seafood getting as much as 25 percent of their weight from ice.

“I think it’s a significant problem,” said Judy Cardin, chief of weights and measures for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

An ice glaze is typically applied to help protect seafood from dehydration and freezer burn. But more glaze than needed can be applied, and in any case none of the ice is supposed to be counted as part of the seafood’s weight.

The American Frozen Food Institute, which represents companies that sell frozen seafood, said it was monitoring the issue but had not decided whether there’s a problem that needs increased regulation.

But the industry gathering earlier this year, which a representative of the Frozen Food Institute attended, came to a different conclusion. More than two dozen people representing industry groups, wholesale seafood companies, and state and federal regulators attended the “seafood forum” in May at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency in Gaithersburg, Md.

According to the memorandum summarizing the meeting, there was consensus that shortweighting of seafood was occurring not only in the U.S. but in other countries as well. The summary said further that a concerted effort is needed, including more regulation and consumer education about the fraud.

Industry groups at the forum argued that checking for economic fraud could also improve food safety, because a company that cheated on weight might be more likely to also breach food safety rules.

FDA officials at the forum promised to consider whether such a link existed between food safety and shortweighting.

Perhaps most important for the industry groups, it said it would consider making economic fraud a larger part of its seafood enforcement strategy.

So far, the FDA hasn’t put more resources into inspections for shortweighting, but the industry groups want it to follow through.

“They have a role to play,” said Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute. “That’s what we pay taxes for.”

Monday, October 19, 2009

10.16.2009 3:00 pmPoll: What’s the origin of your catfish?By Harry Jackson Jr.Email thisShare this Print this Digg Yahoo! Del.icio.us Facebook Reddit Drudge Google Fark Stumble It! The American catfish industry is demanding that the USDA ensure that imported catfish is safe.This fresh out of Jackson, Miss.: Catfish farmers – a major industry in the Southeast, and growing in Missouri — are demanding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture impose the same rules of safety, freshness and cleanliness on imported catfish.You mean they don’t already? Apparently not. I didn’t know there was a fight about this. Now, I find out that that earlier this year the Alabama Agriculture found antibiotics that are banned in America, in catfish imported from China. As a result the Alabama Ag Commissioner banned the sale of catfish from China.Catfish Farmers of America want federal legislation that scrutinizes imported fish as closely as American fish.Also news, the American Agriculture Department doesn’t inspect imported seafood. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does that, and according to Alabama, not very well. Last year 5.2 billion pounds of seafood were imported into the United States last year, says the catfish farmers organization. Two percent was inspected by the FDA, says the organization. (Of course it’s infinitely more complicated than that.)Still,

Does it matter to you where the catfish you buy comes from?

Yes. I always buy American fish. No. price matters more than origin. Not my problem. I only eat catfish in Grafton, Ill., where I watch them catch it out of their back doors.

Friday, October 16, 2009U.S. Catfish Industry Launches Campaign Urging USDA to Ensure Safety of Imported Catfish The Catfish Farmers of America this week launched a major advertising and public safety awareness campaign urging the USDA to enact a Congressionally approved law requiring all imported catfish to meet the same stringent health and safety standards as imported beef, poultry and pork.

“We’ve launched this campaign because of the urgency of this health and safety issue,” said Joey Lowery, president of the Catfish Farmers of America. “We need Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to enact this law now. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our families. U.S. catfish farmers fully support the toughest and widest-ranging regulations and inspections that will protect American consumers when it comes to catfish—both imported and domestic.”

While the USDA currently inspects and ensures the safety of all meat and poultry products sold in the United States, it does not inspect seafood. The inspection of seafood is conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Last year 5.2 billion pounds of seafood were imported into the United States from foreign countries. However, the FDA inspected only two percent of all imported seafood, including catfish, according to the Government Accountability Office.

“There is absolutely no way to determine whether all these imports are safe from contamination or harmful chemicals that aren’t allowed here in the U.S.,” said Lowery. “We want USDA approval that every catfish product imported into America meets the same rigorous standards for quality and safety as our farm-raised catfish.”

The Catfish Farmers of America started its “All Catfish Should Be Treated Equally” campaign this week because the administration has reached a critical point in the decision-making process for enacting the law.

The U.S. Congress, responding to evidence of serious problems with the quality of imported catfish, voted to move catfish inspections and regulation from the FDA to USDA as part of the 2008 Farm Bill. USDA Secretary Vilsack, who has made food safety one of his top priorities, is now considering whether to require that all imported catfish meet USDA standards, or to include only Chinese “channel” catfish which are grown from young U.S. catfish stock.

Catfish products are also imported to the United States from Vietnam and Thailand where fish from the catfish family are called “tra” or “basa.” Among the two percent of seafood imports from Vietnam inspected by the FDA during a recent four-year period, nearly one in every five seafood shipments, including catfish, was contaminated with potentially deadly chemicals or drugs that are banned by the United States in farm-raised catfish, according to the FDA.

In a bipartisan appeal, Sen. Blanche L. Lincoln (D-Ark.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, urged Vilsack to “support a broad definition of catfish that will ensure that catfish products meet the standards for safety that Americans have come to expect from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA.)”

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

• MISC. Troutman Sanders Public Affairs Group is lobbying for the Catfish Farmers of America of Jackson, Miss. Ben Noble, a former legislative assistant to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), and Robert Leebern, former chief of staff to then-Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), are lobbying on a U.S. Department of Agriculture regulation on inspection of catfish.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Eligible aquaculture producers, including catfish and crawfish producers, are reminded that signup continues at the Farm Service Agency Office for participation in the Farmable Wetlands Program, an important component of the Conservation Reserve Program.

Authorized incentives include a payment of $100 per acre, an incentive payment of 40 percent of the cost to establish the practice and a 120 percent rental rate.Land eligibility for the Farmable Wetlands Program, under CRP, now includes land that was devoted to commercial pond-raised aquaculture in any year from 2002 to 2007.Commercial pond-raised aquaculture means any earthen facility from which $1,000 or more of freshwater food fish were sold or normally would have been sold during a calendar year.Producers must provide verification of commercial pond-raised aquaculture with supporting records such as feed purchase records, stocker purchase records, harvest and/or sales records.Aquaculture facilities must be out of production before the effective date of an approved contract. Through FWP, the Farm Service Agency establishes 10-15 year contracts with agricultural producers.FWP participants must agree to restore the hydrology of the wetlands, to establish vegetative cover which may include emerging vegetation in water, bottomland hardwoods, cypress and other appropriate tree species, and to the general prohibition of using of the enrolled land for commercial purposes, including crawfishing for commercial purposes.For additional details and information on all new CRP Farmable Wetlands Program initiatives or other FSA conservation programs, contact the local FSA Office. Information is also available on the web at www.fsa.usda.gov.

Friday, October 2, 2009

LINCOLN, NE (September 30, 2009) - State Executive Director, Dan Steinkruger announced that producers may begin applying for benefits under the provisions of the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) at their county FSA office. This permanent disaster program as authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill replaced previous ad-hoc disaster assistance programs and is funded through the Agricultural Disaster Relief Trust Fund.

ELAP provides emergency assistance to eligible producers of livestock, honeybees and farm-raised fish that have grazing or feed losses due to insects, adverse weather such as blizzards, tornados, freeze, hail, wildfires, flooding, and colony collapse disorder for honey bees or death loss of farm-raised fish due to contaminated water or excessive heat. ELAP assistance is for losses not covered under other Supplemental Agricultural Disaster Assistance programs established by the 2008 Farm Bill, specifically the Livestock Forage Program (LFP), the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), and the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program (SURE). ELAP is being implemented to fill in the gap and provide assistance under other conditions determined to be appropriate and funding is limited to 50 million dollars each year so payments may be prorated.

Producers who suffered losses in calendar year 2008 must provide a notice of loss and application for payment along with supporting documentation to their administrative county office no later than December 10, 2009. Producers who suffered eligible losses between January 1, 2009 and September 10, 2009 must provide a notice of loss no later than December 10, 2009, and an application for payment no later than January 30, 2010. Late filed applications will not be accepted.

For the ELAP program, producers must have suffered losses that occurred on or after Jan. 1, 2008, and before Oct. 1, 2011. There is a total $100,000 limitation per crop year that applies to payments received under ELAP, LFP, LIP or SURE.

For more information or to apply for ELAP and other USDA Farm Service Agency disaster assistance programs, please visit your FSA county office or www.fsa.usda.gov.